


Fourth Time's A Charm

by Prialee



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fic, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prialee/pseuds/Prialee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an undercover operation where Neal was held hostage and rescued a week later, seemingly unharmed, he starts getting sick.  Peter finally steps in to make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fourth Time's A Charm

**Author's Note:**

> Gratuitous sick!fic. Almost embarrassingly so. Nearly 5000 words of pointlessness. You've been warned.

Peter was in the middle of shaving when El slid behind him, reaching for her curling iron with one hand and offering Peter his phone with the other. 

“What?” 

“It’s gone off three times since you came in here,” she explained.

Razor suspended mid-air, Peter accepted his phone and warily flipped through his missed alerts.  Calls or texts out of business hours always meant trouble or, more often than not, Neal was up to something.  What he wasn’t expecting was a text from Neal claiming that he was sick.  Again. 

Ist missed alert:

NEAL:  Not feeling well, slept through my alarm for half an hour. 

2nd missed alert:

NEAL: Gonna be a little late.  Sorry. 

3rd missed alert:

NEAL:  I’ll sneak you one of those lattés that you don’t want to admit you love to make it up to you

Peter stared at his phone, a glob of shaving cream dropping from his razor onto his sock.  He must have been frowning because El playfully elbowed him in the hip. 

“What’s wrong?”

Peter snapped his attention to his wife, smiling reassuringly.  He tossed his phone onto his towel which was still lying in a pile on top of the toilet seat.

“Nothing.”  He shook his head and resumed shaving.  “Neal’s sick.”

 It was El’s turn to frown at him in the mirror.  “Again?  Didn’t he just get over the flu?”

Peter let out a loaded sigh.

“You think he’s faking?”  It was more of a statement than anything, but she had the decency to raise her voice on the last syllable so as not to sound too accusatory. 

“I would, normally,” he admitted.  “But he just said he’s going to be late, not absent.”  Peter ran his razor under the tap and leaned in to get a closer look at his jaw line before starting in on the other side. 

“I hope he's just hungover. Then I can yell at him."

"Peter," she warned, scowling teasingly.

"I guess I’m more concerned that he’s sick _again_.”

It must have been what she wanted to hear because a soft kiss was planted on his freshly shaven cheek.  “You’re a good man, Peter Burke.” 

Peter grunted. 

“Tell Neal I hope he feels better.”

***

Over an hour into the work day, Peter was almost ready to admit he had fallen for one of Neal’s traps, when Neal finally walked out of the elevator on the 21st floor.

He barely had his hat and coat off when he glanced up at Peter’s office only to receive the double finger point.  He pulled himself up the stairs using the banister and even doled out a tight smile before dropping heavily into the chair opposite Peter’s desk, clearly expecting to be reprimanded for something.

“You okay?”  Peter asked first in lieu of a greeting.  If it wasn’t obvious as soon as Neal stepped out of the elevator that he was seriously under the weather, it certainly was clear now at this distance.  His face was pale and eyes bloodshot.  He looked like someone had confiscated all his wine, kicked him repeatedly, and then kept him awake for four days straight. 

“I’ve been better,” Neal admitted – or croaked.  He quickly turned his head and coughed roughly into his sleeve.  “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.  You sure you’re alright to be here?  You don’t look so good…”

Neal rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to waken himself.  “Already missed three days this month,” he responded, settling for keeping his eyes closed and resting his chin on his palm, as if that was an answer enough to Peter’s question.

Neal looked like he could fall asleep right there in Peter’s office.  And probably would have if he didn’t start coughing painfully again.

“Go home,” Peter said softly when Neal could breathe again.  “You should have said you were this sick.  I never would have made you come in.”

“It’s not that bad,” Neal tried to retaliate, but his contradicting voice was giving out on every other syllable and half of it was inaudible

“Out,” Peter said, pointing to the exit.  “Go home.  Sleep, take medicine, get rid of that fever and kick this thing once and for all.  You shouldn’t be this sick all the time.”

Neal nodded, laboriously pulled himself to his feet.  “Thanks,” he whispered.

It was four days until Neal showed his face in the office again.  Pale and looking a little thinner than was normal for him, a residual cough still punctuating his sentences, but clearly no longer feverish as was evidenced by the fact that he seemed to take pleasure in driving everyone around him crazy, bouncing around the office like an over-caffeinated puppy.

Peter didn’t even think to worry about the fact that Neal, whom he had never seen sick before, had spent most of the last month fighting something off.  That is, until it happened again, not even four weeks later.

***

“You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“I wish I was.”

Peter’s mind was being pulled in so many different directions, but all he could manage to think at the moment was how was he going to explain this to Hughes? No one got sick this often.  Especially someone as healthy, fit and seemingly invincible as his CI.

“What’s going on here, Neal?  Have you seen a doctor yet?  How can you be sick _again_?”

There was a long pause, a wet sniffle, and some throat clearing.  Peter was about to launch into his next set of questions when Neal spoke up, voice thin, cracking and lacking any of its usual energy.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll try to get in to see someone later.”

Peter let out a long breath.  He wasn’t mad _at_ Neal, just the situation.  “All right.  Get some rest.  I’ll stop by after I’m done here to see how you’re doing.  Do you need anything?”

He knew El would applaud him for that reaction, but it was hard not to think about how he was going to justify Neal’s absence again.  If any employee—even one without a criminal record and wearing an anklet so they could track his every move and make sure he was staying out of trouble—took eight sick days on three separate occasions within two months, he would have some explaining to do to avoid suspicion. 

Neal declined and thanked Peter for the offer, but didn’t end the call in time for Peter not to hear him launch into a wicked sounding coughing fit. 

It had been an interesting year thus far for Neal.  Illnesses aside, he’d narrowly escaped being carved into pieces in a fragile hostage situation with some seriously unstable bank robbers.  He’d been held in an old storage room underneath an abandoned warehouse for 6 days with minimum food and water while the team worked feverishly to find and retrieve him—hopefully alive.

When they brought Neal home after that incredibly stressful week, it was almost a joke that he got sick a week later.  The sheer relief to have him back in one piece after so many doubtful, sleepless nights made it that much easier to laugh at and tease the conman when he succumbed to the comparatively innocuous flu. 

_Sure, you make it out of a hostage situation with known murderers completely unscathed but a little bug manages to knock you on your ass for a week afterwards._

Neal even played along, whining to Peter that everyone in the office was so disrespectful of his grand sacrifice on the FBI’s behalf, and, on one rather memorable conference call with Neal on speaker in a room full of white collar agents, threatened to lick the offending agents’ phones when he got back to work.

But when it happened again, _and then again_ , Peter couldn’t ignore the nagging suspicion that something peculiar was going on other than Neal’s apparent sudden lack of an immune system.   

***

Peter snuck out of the office unharassed following a late afternoon budget meeting.  He stopped a few blocks from June’s to pick up some take-out soup from Neal’s favorite local deli.        

The small container was still hot enough to force him to switch hands several times on the way up to the third floor loft. 

A soft knock on the door, unsurprisingly, went unanswered.  Having warned of his visit, Peter didn’t feel as though he was intruding by letting himself in. 

The apartment was sundrenched and warm, if a little stuffy.  He made a mental note to crack one of the patio doors open for a few minutes to let some fresh air in while he was there. 

A quick survey of the room revealed no sign of life until he stepped around the corner to find Neal curled up tightly on the far end of the couch, asleep under a couple of blankets.

“Neal,” Peter whispered softly, putting the soup on the coffee table and sitting on the little piece of unoccupied cushion at Neal’s feet.  When he got no response, he squeezed a sweatpant-covered shin, hoping for a reaction.

Slotted blue eyes appeared behind barely opened eyelids and Neal blinked himself awake, slowly focussing on Peter’s face.

“Hey,” he tried to say, but the effort cost him a series of unforgiving coughs into the blanket that he just managed to pull up over his mouth. 

Peter arched an eyebrow.  “Hey yourself.  You sound terrible.”

Neal’s eyes were watering as he regained his breath through hard-to-ignore wheezing.    

“I feel terrible,” he whispered back when he could. 

Peter nodded.  That much was obvious.  “I brought you some soup from that place you love so much.  That might make you feel better.”

The little knot of worry in the pit of Peter’s stomach grew substantially when Neal shook his head. 

“Can’t keep anything down right now.”

“Were you sick to your stomach the other times you were sick recently?”

Neal shrugged.  “A little.”  He swallowed, winced, then continued, “Not this bad, though.”

When Peter really thought about it, Neal never really did “get over” whatever it was/is that was plaguing him the last time.  The lingering cough had reduced to about a quarter in frequency but never really, fully went away.  And even after Neal declared himself “all better,” there were still the odd day when Neal looked lethargic and ill, two things that Peter would have never used to describe his CI prior to the onset of this super-flu.  It was as if he was suffering from some chronic illness and the realization hit Peter like a fist to the gut.

“Okay, come on, get yourself dressed.” Peter said, patting Neal’s socked foot and getting to his feet.

Neal stared back at him with disbelieving, glazed eyes.  “Huh?”

“We’re going to the hospital.  Find out what’s going on with you once and for all.”

Neal sniffed ineffectually against the blockage in his head and appeared to be sorting through reasons and excuses that would allow him to stay curled up on his couch, awaiting imminent death.

“No, uh uh, not up for discussion,” Peter jumped in before Neal could offer his rebuttal.  “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can get back here and into bed.”

A sigh, a couple of damp coughs, and a barely detectable roll of the eyes later, Neal was struggling out of his cocoon of blankets and retrieving items of clothing from a small pile at the foot of the unmade bed.

Peter kept himself busy by putting the soup in the fridge and texting El to let her know what was happening. 

It wasn’t Neal’s most impressive fashion statement, but five minutes later, he had dressed in jeans, loosely tied running shoes and a slightly oversized sweatshirt and was slowly making his way down the stairs to the car parked out front.   Peter was close behind, hand hovering just off Neal’s lower back, ready to provide support or guide forward if needed.

The majority of the ride was uneventful.  The short time on his feet seemed to have zapped Neal of all his energy and he immediately dropped off to sleep once Peter pulled out into traffic.  A few minutes away from the hospital, Neal woke and started fidgeting with his seatbelt, pulling it away from his chest like it was suffocating him. 

“You okay?” Peter asked curiously.  A darting glance to his right revealed Neal looking a little greener than he had before they left.  “You going to be sick?”

There was a long pause before Neal shook his head.  

“We’re almost there.”  Peter tried to sound reassuring and positive.  “Just a couple more minutes at the most.”

Neal grunted, coughed into his sleeve then went back to resting his head against the cool glass of the window. 

***

Peter pushed Neal into a chair in a quieter corner of the waiting room and sat beside with the clipboard.  “D’you want me to take care of this?” he asked, waving the clipboard. 

Neal nodded, leaned his head back against the wall with a whispered, “Please.”

The wait wasn’t extraordinarily long, but it couldn’t end soon enough.   Whether from the fever or just severe discomfort that comes along with being as sick as Neal obviously was, it wasn’t long before Neal started squirming, constantly flipping back and forth from leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed to resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face into his hands.   The nasty sounding cough worked wonders at keeping others from crowding too close to them, thankfully, but even with all the children and their noise sequestered in the other end of the room, it was obvious to Peter that Neal wasn’t going to last too much longer.

“I’m sure it won’t be too much longer,” Peter said distractedly, not for the first time. 

Neal had just nodded miserably every other time Peter had tried to assure him the wait would soon come to an end, but this time, he surprised Peter by turning his head to respond verbally.  “Can I please just go home?  I just want to sleep.”

And Peter came so close to caving, if just because Neal now looked like he was on the verge of tears and the consequences of that scared the hell out of Peter.  But like an angel appearing before their very eyes, a nurse popped out in white printed scrubs and, miraculously, the name she called out was Neal’s.

“Not yet.  Soon,” Peter said, standing stiffly and encouraging Neal to do the same.

They were ushered into a curtained off area with a narrow bed and a hard plastic chair.  It was a slight upgrade from the waiting room, at least.

Neal had barely gotten himself settled on the bed when a man who introduced himself as Dr. Obrien made an appearance, forcing him to sit back up again.

The doctor inquired first about what brought Neal in, but an impromptu coughing fit answered better than words could at this point.  Peter added that this was the third time in two months Neal had been this sick. 

The doctor grunted at that, interest peaked for the first time since he came in.

The following assessment was brief and to the point, involving every practical test (blood pressure, temperature, respiration, eyes, nose, throat, ears, and so on) and several clipped questions requiring yes or no answers from a seriously drained looking Neal. 

 After the efficient exam, the doctor was writing up some requisitions for blood and urine samples when he asked, “Have you been exposed to anything unusual lately?  Can you think of anything over the last few months that might have placed you in an unusual situation where exposure might have occurred?”

“Exposure to what?” Neal asked in his broken voice, squinting up at Dr. Obrien.

“Mold, mercury?  Anything unusual or any situation you can think of when you could have come into contact with something like that?”

Peter felt his heart sink in his chest.  “He was in a…” Peter grimaced, realizing how odd this would sound to a civilian, even a doctor, “hostage situation a couple of months ago.  He spent a week in a damp, dark space…I don’t remember smelling mold, though.”

The doctor now looked significantly more interested than he had when he first came in.  “Any rodents, fecal matter?  What did you eat during that week?”

Neal did his best to answer the questions but by the look on the doctor’s face, he didn’t hear what he was looking for. 

“Okay, I’m going to add a bunch more tests and see if we can get to the bottom of this.”  He jotted some more notes on the requisition sheet and ticked several more boxes before turning his attention back to Peter.  ”Agent…”

“Burke.”

“Agent Burke, is there anyway I could ask you some more questions about this room he was kept in?  The more information we have, the better chance we have of pinpointing any potential causes.”

“Sure,” Peter said, getting up to follow the doctor out of curtained area.  “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said to Neal, who was already reclining again onto the cot and waving him off. 

In the hall, the doctor took a page and a half of notes, asking questions that Peter couldn’t imagine would be relevant, but he didn’t want to piss the guy off by being contrary.  Finally, the meeting was adjourned and Peter found himself back in the uncomfortable chair beside a dozing Neal.  A nurse came in to take countless vials of blood and start a saline drip, and apologized for not being able to give him anything else until they had more info. 

Peter grabbed a discarded paper from the stand in the corner and started on the crossword, settling in for the long haul.

***

Dr. Obrien didn’t make it back to their room for a very long three and a half hours.  Neal managed to sleep through the first hour, and though hydrated, was incredibly agitated and irritable for the other two and a half.  When the drip finished, he excused himself to the bathroom and just when Peter was going to go check in on him because he’d been gone so long, returned to his curtained area looking even paler and stiffer than he had when he left. 

“Hang in there.  They’ll get you on some good stuff as soon as they figure out what’s going on,” Peter tried, but his catch phrases were falling on deaf ears at this point.  Neal just curled up on his side again, his back to Peter, and coughed heavily into his flat pillow.  He stayed that way until the doctor showed his face again. 

“Sorry for the wait,” Dr Obrien said, pulling up a chair from the adjacent exam area.  “But we got your blood work back.”

Neal chivvied up the bed so he could lean his upper body against the wall.  “And?” he asked voicelessly.

“Nothing out of the ordinary considering what your body has been through.”

Neal’s face showed no emotion but at this point, Peter wasn’t sure how much he was actually absorbing.

“I do have a few ideas, though.”

Peter took over, sensing Neal wasn’t going to keep up with the back and forth.  “What are you thinking?”

“Do you remember getting any insect bites?” the doctor asked Neal.

Neal frowned, processing for a few seconds, then pulled his left leg up and reached for his ankle.  He pulled up his pant leg and pointed to a spot just above where his shoes would have covered.

Dr. Obrien leaned in closely and examined the spot.  “Was this when you were captured?”

Neal nodded.  “Didn’t think much of it,” he elaborated tiredly. 

Dr. Obrien leaned back in his chair.  “I think you might have tick borne relapsing fever.”

Neal stared at the doctor blankly, small lines forming between his eyebrows.

Peter took that as his cue to step in. “What does that mean?”

“Well, if I’m right, we start you on a strict antibiotic regimen and then you can be a healthy person again.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

Dr. Obrien smiled.  “Let’s just hope that this is the case.  We’ll get him admitted and start him on doxycycline.  If this is what I think it is, he should start feeling better by this time tomorrow.”

The mention of an extended stay seemed to snap Neal out of his fevered haze.  “Can’t I do this at home?” he pleaded pathetically.

“Given the high grade fever and how your lungs sound, I’d rather have you here until we know for sure.  We’ll do our best to make you as comfortable as possible.”

Neal sighed in resignation and Peter thanked the doctor when he got up to leave.

Peter held up his phone.  “I’m just going to let El know what’s going on, okay?”

“You don’t have to stay here, Peter.  I’m just going to sleep.”  Neal was sliding back to a prone position on the cot, coughing violently as soon as he stopped talking.  Peter watched as tears sprung from Neal’s eyes and his face went from pale and waxy to red from lack of oxygen. 

“I think I do,” Peter replied when Neal was gasping to get his breath back and wiping the tears from his face.  “Besides, El would kill me if I left you here alone,” he teased and was rewarded with a smile.

***

 

Neal was admitted to a semi-private room a floor up and Peter was incredibly relieved to see that the other bed in the room was currently empty. 

El had said she would stop by with some dinner in an hour.  Peter hadn’t even realized how late it was and his stomach grumbled at the thought of food.  True to her word, his wife knocked softly on the door 50 minutes later, carrying a bag full of take out.

“How’s he doing?” she whispered, careful not to wake Neal who was finally sleeping peacefully despite the IVs in his arm.  Peter had been keeping her abreast of the situation all evening but she was still taken aback when she took in the full scene.

“Too early to tell if the antibiotics are working but he seems more comfortable.  Probably just exhausted…”

El looked Neal over, biting her bottom lip.  Her worried frown turned into a sad smile when she met Peter’s eyes.  “Well, let’s make the best of it.”  She pulled a container from her bag. “Fried rice and ginger chicken?”

Peter pulled her into his lap, reaching over her shoulder to take the box of chicken.  “Don’t mind if I do.”

They ate Chinese in the scarcely lit room, using the empty bed as a table.  Neal stirred once, only skirting the edge of consciousness and not even acknowledging El's arrival further than making eye contact before drifting off again. 

“Oh, Honey,” El said quietly, her hand touching Peter’s forearm but her eyes still on Neal.  “He’s looks so…”  She never did find the word to end that sentence. He could see why she was worried; even Neal's _hair_ looked sick.

“Yeah, but with the antibiotics they're pumping into him, he'll be okay.  I’ll make sure of it.”  He wasn’t even just saying it to get in his wife’s good graces, but the comment earned him a haste kiss and a squeeze on the forearm.

El obeyed visiting hours and left before the clock struck 9:30.  Prepared to flash his badge and attempt to look intimidating should someone make him leave, Peter was relieved when all the nurse did was smile at him and wish him a good night. 

He wasn’t going to leave Neal alone, that he knew for sure.  He pulled his jacket off, balled it up into a makeshift pillow, placed it between his head and the wall and began writing emails on his phone to let everyone know both he and Neal would not be in tomorrow.

 

***

Neal woke the early next morning to a slightly lower fever and a positive review from the nurse who was taking his vitals.

“Looks like you’re turning a corner.”

Peter watched the whole exchange from his spot on the chair in the corner, his head heavy from too little sleep and leftover anxiety. 

Neal’s voice was so shot that Peter barely heard him when he said, “Can I have some water?”

“Sure.  Let me just refill your pitcher with some fresh stuff, okay?”

“Thanks.”

Peter stretched and approached the side of Neal’s bed.  “Feeling better?”

“Much,” Neal whispered.  “But still feel like I could sleep for another week.”  He turned away to cough but managed get it under control before changing colors this time.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think that will be tough to negotiate, considering.”

“Hey, it’s not like you knew,” Neal ventured; clearing his throat didn’t give him any of his voice back but his conviction was stronger when he spoke again.  “Not like you made me sick.”

“Did I say that?”

Peter found he could actually breathe a little deeper when Neal gave him a small smile.  “No, but you look like Satchmo did after he ate one of your favorite slippers.”

Peter ran a hand over the back of his neck.  “I guess I feel a little responsible,” Peter admitted. 

“I could have gotten that tick bite anywhere.”

“But you didn’t, did you?  It’s not bad enough you spent a week in an 10 by 10 box fearing for your life, but this is your parting gift?”

“Peter?”

Neal had closed his eyes again, head dropping heavily into the pillow.

“What?”

“Save it for when I feel up to milking it.”

Peter chuckled at that, making his way to the door.  “Deal.  I’m going to go see what’s taking the nurse so long with that water.  You want anything else?”

Neal opened his eyes, but was clearly having a difficult time keeping them open.  “No, thanks.  Just gonna…” He gestured to the bed with a wave of his hand.  “sleep.”

Peter was just out the door when he heard Neal whisper his name again, making him turn around and poke his head back into the room. 

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for staying last night.  I was really—“  Neal frowned searching for the words.

“Out of it?”

Neal sighed, but Peter suspected he was going to say something else.  Worried, scared, _sick_.

“Yeah.”

“Anytime, Neal.”  Peter tapped the door frame twice before leaving.  “Anytime.”

***

Nine days later, Neal was declared fever free and allowed back into the office.  He looked like he needed a hearty meal and was still popping cough drops, but all in all, worlds better than he had been a week and a half ago.  His first day back was shorter than average but by that Friday, he was back to his usual self, and that included the return of his full voice which he was clearly more than happy to use again, prompting more than a few “Shut it, Caffrey”s from frustrated co-workers.

The Monday following, Peter strode off the elevator an uncharacteristic five minutes late only to find Neal’s desk unoccupied.

“Where’s Caffrey?” he asked aloud to shrugs and blank faces.  “Great,” he muttered under his breath, climbing the stairs to his office.

Before Peter could ditch his coat, his cell went off. 

NEAL:  You’re not going to believe this…

That was never good.  Peter pressed the talk button and waited four rings for Neal to answer.

“What am I not going to believe?” Peter asked before Neal could even offer a greeting.

“Um,” Neal started, but just in that one syllable Peter could hear the all too familiar roughness in his voice.

“No.  Tell me you're screwing with me.”

“I think I caught a cold,” Neal replied sheepishly.

“Are you serious, Neal?”

A hoarse chuckle and some sniffling followed.  “Sorry.”

Peter took a deep breath through his nose.  “Just a cold?”

“Yeah, felt it coming on Saturday night.  It’s not like the other times.”

“You realize how ridiculous this is, right?”

Again a chuckle, followed by a couple short coughs. “Oh yeah.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but don’t come back here until you’re 100% healthy.  I don’t want to look at your snotty face any longer.”

Peter could hear the smile in Neal’s voice when he said, “I’m touched.  Really.” 

“And, Neal?”

“Uh huh?”

“This is absurd.  Eat some vegetables or something.”

“Will do, Peter.”


End file.
